Girl removed from Mexican school, forcibly sent to US

A case of mistaken identity led to the detention and deportation of a teenager from Mexico to the US where authorities attempted to reunite her with her biological mother.

In a case that has reached international proportions, a 14-year-old girl was physically dragged from her classroom by two police as she screamed and yelled.

Mexican federal police removed Alondra Luna Nuñez was from her school in the city of Guanajuato to reunite her with a woman who claimed to be the girl’s mother.

The woman, who authorities believed was a Mexican national living in Houston, Texas, claimed that in 2007, her daughter had been illegally taken to Mexico by her biological father. The woman said she had not consented to the move.

DNA tests, which were conducted in the US, showed that the girl was not related to the woman who claimed the girl was her teenaged daughter.

The event was caught on several videos showing Luna Nuñez trying to free herself from the officers while screaming at the top of her lungs. The incident lasted several minutes before she was loaded into a police truck.

Several witnesses, including the teenager’s aunt, stood watching and recording.

A statement from the Mexican Foreign Ministry said that the American woman had recently visited Guanajuato and seen her daughter there.

“Derived on this information … and in compliance with international law … the judge in charge of the case asked Interpol to intervene to make the girl appear at a hearing in which the court would confirm her identity,” the Foreign Ministry said.

In a bizarre turn of events, the girl was sent to the US before her identity was positively confirmed. It wasn’t until after she arrived in Houston that the Mexican Consulate there ordered a DNA test. The results of that test showed that Luna Nuñez was not the woman’s daughter as alleged.

Alondra’s mother, Susana Nuñez, told Milenio Television, “I will have my girl at home. We hope she’s OK. We are taking action on the matter. They stole my child.”

Alondra has since returned to Mexico and has been reunited with her family.